Coming off a 2-21 season, the Russellville Cyclones looked for vast improvement in 2010-11. While they didn't tear through the competition, Russellville did win 10 games and earned a trip to the Class 6A state tournament in Marion last week.

The Cyclones were at a disadvantage all season, with only one player above 6-foot-4 who could bang around inside. Unfortunately for head coach Joe Sitkowski, Mitch Hall, all 6-foot-5 and 320 pounds of him, hadn't played organized basketball since junior high school.

"Anytime there's a big disparity in height you've got to make up for it in other ways," Sitkowski said. "You have to hustle and make sure you block out every time. That's really hard to do. You're talking about 16- to 17-year-old kids that have to play nearly perfect every night to accomplish what you need them to to win the game. A rebound here and there could have changed several things -our seeding in the tournament. Our kids played hard and gave us everything they had."

Add to that, the rumors that this would be Sitkowski's last season leading the team began swirling and, despite people's best efforts, it's hard to minimize the impact that can have on a team.

But with all the factors going against this team, the Cyclones were competitive in almost every game and pushed even some of the top teams in the conference down to the wire.

"We lost a lot of close games this year, in conference especially, and I think that wore on the kids a little bit," Sitkowski, who went 87-103 in his 12 seasons at Russellville, said. "It's tough to have to keep coming back, night after night, and play close to your top level of basketball. You lose a game or two here and there, you know it makes it difficult for the kids. They had a great attitude all year, they worked hard. If we just had a few things go right early in the conference season, I think things would have been different."

One thing the Cyclones were inexperienced in was winning entering the season, and it showed in several games. When a team is used to losing, especially by upwards of 15-20 points a game like they did last season, they have trouble playing with a lead, as evidenced in their first game against North Little Rock.

"We had a lot of chances in that game," Sitkowski said. "We missed a couple of rebounds, missed some free throws. But our kids, I thought did a good job of coming back and beating Bryant. We were 1-1, but we could have been 2-0, that's a big difference there."

The Cyclones lose five seniors to graduation, and Sitkowski said Russellville will miss the leadership the group provided.

"They're a great group of young men, first of all," he continued. "They're all going to be successful in life. They always came to practice and worked hard. When times got tough, they always had their heads up and tried to make sure everybody's were as well. The were just great leaders for us in practice and during games."

But the majority of the team's points will be returning next year. Sitkowski said he's expressed how important leadership is to the juniors on the team. He said they need to step up and really take that mantle of leadership onto their shoulders and be vocal about it. Two players he expects will fill that role are Chris Washington and Grey Harris.

Washington made dramatic improvement from his sophomore season, developing an outside game and becoming stronger with his ball-handling.

"Chris did a real good job for us this year," the coach said. "Early on, he was averaging about 18 points a game. He had some struggles when conference started, but most of the time he was pretty consistent. It seemed like when he was going well, the team usually played pretty well. He was the point guard, the leader on the floor and controlled everything. For him to come as far as he has in such a short period of time it's just great to see. With the time and effort he puts into it, there's no telling how good he can be next year."

Harris missed half of his sophomore season after a ligament tear kept him out during the non-conference season. He showed flashes of his ability last year, but entered 2010-11 as a relative unknown. But with his knee fully healed, Harris became the go-to scorer for Russellville.

"Grey's got a chance to be a great basketball player here at Russellville," Sitkowski said. "He's got great work ethic, but does need to get a little more consistent shooting the ball from outside. One thing about Grey is he can always go to the basket and find other ways to score. He was our leader out there, especially through conference season, and I think in his senior year he'll be able to show how good he can really be."

Add in juniors like Eric Turner, Jordan Barrett, Kyle Jones and Michael Sacrey, and whoever becomes the head coach will be pretty stacked with talented seniors.